film scores

Well the best score is of course the one the great Sergio Leoni commissioned Ennio Morricone to write for what stands as the best Western of all time, Once Upon A Time In The West. When the director has the music written first and then directs the movie to fit the score you know the score is great. 

This much is of course obvious. What I really want to say though is you do NOT need a "theater set-up" for movies. A Home Theater setup is in fact the best way to RUIN a good movie sound track. 

What you want is what you hopefully already have, a really good stereo. 

Then you put up a screen, back on the wall behind the speakers where it does not interfere at all with your sound system, put a projector on the ceiling up and behind where it does not interfere at all with your listening, and WALA! You have the best you can get for watching movies with the best possible video AND sound.

I listened to the Batman score penned by Danny Elfman the other night and really dug it.

I really enjoy the score from the movie “Manhattan”.  Great recording and song selection.

It’s too bad Hans Zimmer ruined film scores for everyone with his generic brand of meh. 

I would never be so bold as to opine that any composer is the "best" but Morricone is certainly among the top film composers. Other most worthy contributors to the genre I really enjoy are Bernard Hermann and John Barry. I have most of Hermann's film scores on vinyl and greatly enjoy his work. The City of Prague Philharmonic has a well recorded, excellent sounding "The James Bond Collection" 4 disc set of James Bond film music (John Barry.) One aspect of that recording I like is that some of the cutesy smarmy sounding vocal tracks in the original recordings have been rescored as instrumentals and sound much better to my tastes. Barry's 1972 film score for "Zulu" is also excellent. I stumbled into a set of Mark Isham film score recordings a few years ago and have come to appreciate his composing talents as well. I look forward to hearing the release of the film score for the new film "Joker" by the Icelandic composer Hildur Guonadottir. Lastly, film music buffs should check out Chandos Recording's "Film Music" series, it's a deep exploration of the genre: http://https//www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHUSB%200020

I also forgot to mention another favorite, Nino Rota. Ricardo Chailly's recordings of Fellini soundtracks and the Godfather scores are recordings I listen to frequently. 

A couple that have a cult following among vinyl collectors for recording quality are
The Mission by Morricone
Empire of the Sun by Williams.